


The Cleric and the Mage

by gnomesb4trolls



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Gen, Nightmares, POV Will Byers, Protective Will Byers, Shared Trauma, Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnomesb4trolls/pseuds/gnomesb4trolls
Summary: Eleven doesn't have powers anymore, but at least she has people who love her.This is sort of a sequel to Material Girl, but can be read on its own.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	The Cleric and the Mage

Will first noticed El trying to use her powers on the day that they left Hawkins. 

There was one more box sitting in the driveway, waiting to go into the moving truck, and for a second she just stared at it, her gaze boring into the cardboard, and he knew that she was willing it to move. 

There was no vibration, though, no trickle of blood from her nose, no electric stillness in the air like the moment before a thunderstorm. The box didn’t move, and her shoulders slumped, and he ducked back inside the house before she could see him watching. He didn’t know how he knew that she didn’t want anyone else to see that, but he knew. 

That hadn’t actually been the first time: she’d tried to use her powers a lot in the weeks after Starcourt. That had been different, though, habit more than anything, like flipping a light switch because you’ve forgotten that the power’s out. She’d been a ghost those weeks, haunting the Byers’ couch, staring at the wallpaper as if it might open any minute and Hopper might emerge alive. 

He’d felt for her, watching her grope through the dark, forgetting how to move through the world without that extra sense. They’d all tried to pull her out, taking turns sitting next to the couch and talking about nothing. Even Steve had come once: he’d spent an hour sprawled on the floor cracking silly jokes until finally, finally she gave him the ghost of a smile. Will remembered thinking how different her face looked like that. 

When it had been his turn, he hadn’t talked much. He’d mostly just sat there, making a stray comment or two so that she wouldn’t feel alone. He’d thought a lot about his fight with Mike, and how it had never really been her that he’d resented, but the fact that everything had changed without his permission, that he was never again going to be that kid who’d ridden his bike into the woods after a D&D campaign with his friends. 

The thing that he came to understand, as he watched her claw herself out of her own shadow world, was that there had never been a before for her, a time when she could remember feeling whole. 

She talked to him about her nightmares, sometimes. 

He’d waited, letting her find words at her own pace. Will knew that she was still learning how to say what she needed to. 

One night, she’d come out of her room with tears still on her face, arms wrapped around her torso as if trying to hold herself together, and she’d talked to him about Hopper. 

After that, it had gotten easier to read her silences, to know when she just wanted not to be alone and when she was struggling to find words. 

Will was already on the couch, trying to focus on the comic book he was reading, when he heard her door crack open. 

For a minute or so, nothing else happened, but that wasn’t unusual. He didn’t know why, but he knew that sometimes she didn’t like closed doors. He and Jonathan had both offered to share a room those last months in Hawkins so that she could have one of her own, but she’d just shook her head every time they’d brought it up, shadows on her face that he couldn’t read. He’d known that she was getting better when she’d let Joyce set up a cot for her in the corner of the living room, with a curtain that she could draw for privacy. 

Finally, she walked out into the living room, hesitating for a second in the doorway before coming to sit on the other end of the couch, drawing her knees up to her chest. Will set down his comic book and waited. There were no tears on her face, but she looked haunted, her dark eyes huge in the lamplight. 

He waited, and she didn’t say anything. 

“Is it—is it Hopper?” He asked, finally. Her knuckles were white where her hands gripped each other, and he didn’t want to push her but it seemed like she wanted to talk, and he knew what it was like when it hurt too much to say anything, even the words you most needed. 

She shook her head. There was a long silence, long enough for him to notice the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. 

“The lab,” she said. 

“Oh.” He felt something tighten in his chest. Of course. He’d tried so hard not to think about that place, and in the process he’d almost forgotten that she’d grown up there, that until not so long ago she hadn’t known anything outside of those sterile white walls. 

He’d hated having to go there, that whole year after he’d escaped the Upside Down. He’d hated how cold he’d always felt under the scrutiny of all of those machines, how exposed. Every visit there had served as a reminder that something in him was wrong now, tainted, that he would never go back to the way he’d been. 

At least he’d had his mom, though. She’d always done something nice for him afterwards, taken him out for ice cream or picked up a pizza for dinner or let him choose a movie even if it wasn’t his turn. She’d done her best to keep him tethered to something like normalcy, to help him believe that he was going to get better. 

El hadn’t had anyone to take her out for ice cream, or to tell her that she was brave, and good, and that she deserved better than what she’d been given. 

He didn’t know how long they’d both been silent before she started talking. 

“There was a room.” She was staring straight ahead, not looking at him, her body all rigid angles. “It was dark, and cold, and—” She took a shuddering breath, “—when I didn’t do what they wanted, they’d lock me in. Long time.” She stopped, and he watched her grope for words in the dark. “Now, when I—dream, I’m always there. Because—because I can’t do that anymore.” 

Will didn’t swear much, but he wanted to now. He wanted to hit things. He wanted to hurt everyone who had hurt her, who had made her think that she wasn’t worth anything unless she could be a weapon, a tool in someone else’s hand. 

“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s ok that you can’t—that you don’t have powers anymore. I mean, it doesn’t matter.” He felt like he was screwing this up, saying the wrong thing, but she was watching him and he wanted to make this better for her, so he kept going. 

He took a breath. “You don’t have to have powers to matter to people,” he said. “And even if you could still do those things, and you just didn’t want to, it wouldn’t matter. You could do whatever you wanted.” 

For a second she just looked at him, as if he was a code that she didn’t know how to decipher. “I don’t know what I want.” 

He nodded. “That’s OK, too.”

She looked at him, and looked at him, and he tried to stay steady under her gaze. “Promise?” 

“Promise.”


End file.
